Case file · Folklore / legend
Ubar found at Shisr?
In 1992 an expedition led by Nicholas Clapp and Ranulph Fiennes, using NASA radar images of caravan tracks, announced it had found Ubar, the Qur'an's Iram 'of the pillars', at Shisr in Oman.
1992 CE · 18.26, 53.65 · status: disputed
The account
The fort had collapsed into a sinkhole, which seemed to fit the legend of a city swallowed by the earth.
The sceptical view
Archaeologists accept a frankincense caravan station at Shisr but doubt it was a great city or 'Iram'; Juris Zarins, the project's archaeologist, called Ubar a region rather than a town.